Traumatising children's programmes

[Stumpy Pepys]

Heidi. The live action 1978 one.

Was discussing the aforementioned with Fräulein Pepys so ended up watching a random YouTube episode.

The one in question was where Heidi is sent to Frankfurt. Really horrible. Proper child abuse and neglect on kids TV.

I'm also aware generations previous to mine were traumatised by The Singing Ringing Tree. I heard a Radio 4 show once, where such a journalist went to eastern Europe to track down the director.

So which children's programmes traumatised you as a child?

[Toby Gymshorts]

Any bastard who posts pictures or videos of Noseybonk from Jigsaw can expect me to come around to their house and scowl at them while they're asleep.

[Benjm]

Chico the rainmaker. Plucky kids thwarting crime with the help of a shrunken head from the Amazon.

[treibeis]

For any Brit born between 1963 and 1973, surely "The Changes" and "Apache" win this by a country mile? With public-information films in the runner-up slots?

[Lang Spoon]

Fucking hell, I don't quite remember noseybonk, but that must just be nervous sickly child memory repression. That's Mulholland Drive hobo behind the diner terrifying. Sadist BBC bastards.

[Eggchaser]

For any Brit born between 1963 and 1973, surely "The Changes" and "Apache" win this by a country mile? With public-information films in the runner-up slots?

We were shown Apaches as young things in prep school in the early 80s. It was fucking hilarious.

[treibeis]

We were shown Apaches as young things in prep school in the early 80s. It was fucking hilarious.

Yes, but you, unlike me, didn't come from somewhere dominated by tractors and manure.

[3 Colours Red]

If they had never repeated Terrahawks, I would not have been old enough to experience the horror of Zelda. Unfortunately, the thought of catching sight of her as a five year old still gives me shivers over three decades on.

Oh and Scragtag - a puppet cat with beady little eyes and a bad case of the mange.

[elguapo4]

Public information films, there was one with a doll falling into a grain silo with Mr public information narrator talking about how you can drown on dry land, it's probably on YouTube somewhere but that scared the fuck out of me.
Mr Magoo when he walked into the o's in Magoo in the opening credits and his eyes got big for some reason scared me as well.

[Kevin S]

Before my time but in terms of public information isn't The Finish Line the alpha and omega of traumatising?

The Trap Door was bloody weird but worth the trauma for the catchphrase, "BERK! FEED ME!"

[Kevin S]

Correction, the film is called The Finishing Line.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slJyhOEo-SY&t=67s

[slackster]

Characters that scared the bejesus out of me as a kiddie:

The Witch in The Pogles. Considered so sinister the Beeb demanded Oliver Postgate remove the character from subsequent runs (as Pogles’ Wood)

The Goblins in Noddy. Dear old Enid Blyton was pretty good at striking a chord with stereotypical villains, and the animators ladled on the fear factor for little ‘uns.

I guess both can be found on youtube.

[treibeis]

Public information films, there was one with a doll falling into a grain silo with Mr public information narrator talking about how you can drown on dry land, it's probably on YouTube somewhere but that scared the fuck out of me.

The one about old fridges being able to kill children was the one that got me.

I remember visiting my paternal grandfather once and my father telling me that everything in his kitchen and front room "was there even when I was living here, before I married your mother." I near-as-made-no-difference shat myself (and, yes, I was 22 at the time).

I've said this before, but Charley The Cat in the public-information films reminds me of Thomas Müller.

[treibeis]

Thinking about it, being terrified by my paternal grandfather's fridge was nothing compared to visits to my maternal grandfather. He was obsessed by the Aberfan Disaster - his cousin lived there - and used to go on about it all the time.

[Eggchaser]

Yes, but you, unlike me, didn't come from somewhere dominated by tractors and manure.

I can't help it if you were raised by cows.

[Patrick Thistle]

Fenella the Witch in Charlton and the Wheelies scared the crap out of me. She could just APPEAR AT ANY TIME OUT OF THE GROUND! AAAAAARGH

[Crystal Staples]

Noseybonk's the clear winner of this, but my own personal trauma as a child was inanimate objects coming to life, when of an age you're able to believe it physically possible. So, Bagpuss waking up over hypnotic music, but the really terrifying thing was the idea that when the clock strikes midnight the snowman in your back garden could turn round and start walking towards the house.

For many years I was also deeply suspicious of gingerbread men and pancakes.

[tuckwat]

Singing Ringing Tree.

There was also a scary ITV series about trees that moved about and had the percussion bit from Autobahn on the out credits but have no idea what it was called

[treibeis]

I can't help it if you were raised by cows.

My mother had many faults, but that's still a trifle harsh.

Looking back, the bit of Bristol I grew up in offered the worst of both worlds. To the west of the estate was the industrial slum that was east Bristol. Ten minutes to the east, you had villages full of Bristol Rovers supporters who wore bib overalls six days a week (on Sundays, they'd put a vest on under their bib overalls to go to church in) and who drove around in flat-bed pick-ups adorned with Confederate flags. There was so little east of where I grew up that there were kids in my class who'd been bussed in from fucking Wiltshire. They were referred to as "composts".

[treibeis]

The head on the wall that functioned as a doorbell in The Banana Splits used to shit me up.

[ad hoc]

For any Brit born between 1963 and 1973, surely "The Changes" and "Apache" win this by a country mile? With public-information films in the runner-up slots?

I fit the target demographic, but have no recollection of either of these two programmes

[treibeis]

I fit the target demographic, but have no recollection of either of these two programmes

Apache was a one-off, feature-length public-information film. But The Changes was a series, in the five-past-five slot on BBC1. I reckon it would unsettle me if I watched it now.

[Jah Womble]

The Changes was pretty disturbing, indeed - it was billed as 'a drama for older children'. I didn't see the entire series, but remember the very first episode in which the dad suddenly went berserk and smashed up an alarm clock or toaster (or similar).

Tales From Europe was full of weird and dark stuff - I think that The Singing Ringing Tree was a part of the series. The TFE version of The Tinder Box put the bejayzus up me, with those increasingly-sized dogs hidden behind consecutive doors (if anybody even remotely recalls that?). The BBC would also occasionally serve up an animation from Eastern Europe that invariably contained some underlying social message and usually resulted in somebody's death - which, at six years old, I found a shade upsetting.

There was also a Tom & Jerry episode set during the French Revolution that ended with Tom (or the character being played by Tom, as it were) being sent to the guillotine. I couldn't bloody sleep after that.

[treibeis]

The Changes was pretty disturbing, indeed - it was billed as 'a drama for older children'. I didn't see the entire series, but remember the very first episode in which the dad suddenly went berserk and smashed up an alarm clock or toaster (or similar).

He kicked the shit out of the television set as well. The fact that he looked like Michael Eavis didn't help, either.

The TFE version of The Tinder Box put the bejayzus up me, with those increasingly-sized dogs hidden behind consecutive doors (if anybody even remotely recalls that)

I was given the illustrated book of that by my aunt. Yes, great big dogs, gallows and imminent death.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

The Finishing Line - wow, just watched bits of that from Kev's link. Extraordinary. I'd never heard of it before. It was on telly several times according to Wiki, all within the first couple of years of its production (1977).